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My Most Memorable Book!

Chike And The River, by Chinua Achebe

Iquo

Iquo Eke is a
performance poet who enjoys promoting her native Ibibio culture through the
spoken language. Although she is a graduate of Industrial Relations and Human
Resource Management, she has done so much as a folklore poet and writer.

As a teenager,
Iquo found that she could express her emotions better through writing down her
experiences, with a hope of sharing them with somebody someday. No matter what
challenge she passed through, she had an easy getaway in books, which has paid
off for her.

Chinua Achebe’s ‘ Chike and the River’ remains
Iquo’s most memorable book because reading the book gave her a first time
knowledge about the River Niger! Iquo
enjoyed the pockets of short adventurous experiences narrated in the book and
she has continued to bear in her memory, Achebe’s power of narratives which are
always engaging and entertaining.

Chinua
Achebe’s ‘Chike and the river’ remains fresh with me, first because of the
simple diction and a narrative pattern
that makes the readerwant to find out what comes next.

When I
read the book, somehow I felt as though I had known so much about the river and
I enjoyed the eulogies. But then, I thought I also almost felt like Chike who
was quite inquisitive.

A
summary of the book is about how 11 year-old Chike longed to cross the River
Niger to the city of Asaba, but his challenge was that crossing by the ferry
would cost him six pence, an amount he did not have. However, with the help of
his friend S.M.O.G., he embarked on a series of adventures to enable him get to
Asaba.

The
adventure was not an easy one for Chike who got exposed to a number of
experiences that were both thrilling and terrifying. But for me, that was the fun
and beautiful memory of reading about a child who was exploring based on his
quest to get to the root of a thing.

In some
ways, young people still live the experience of Chike, showing how vast
Achebe’s thoughts were even in 1966 when he wrote the book. The strength of the
story was the fact that the author gave attention to every detail, like talking
about Chike’s experience of having to eat his first skewerof suya
under the shade of a mango tree, to visiting the village magician who promises
to double the money in his pocket.

What a
wonderful way to unveiling the feeble mind of a child who agrees that his money
could easily be doubled. Achebe simply expressed how an inquisitive child’s
thoughts could be driven by any and everything.

Poor
child, it was like a crumbling cake when Chike finally got across the river. In
great disappointment, he saw for himself that life across the river was just no
different from where he had come from. And the option left for Chike was to
make his way back to his home. But that also demanded great courage.

Memories
of the book resonates whenever I see a young child trying to get into some kind
of adventure, or when people get so eager to want to visit a place or find out
what is inside a place.The
consciousness of not wanting to be caught in similar situation may just be
fresh with anyone who had read the book.

Relating
this to what we experience in society, it may just be looking at how people feel
about going in search of ‘greener pastures’ to some advanced country. And by the time they struggle to get to the
perceived ‘promised land’ they feel greatly disappointed and begin to fight for
a return home.